One point is equivalent to ten cents. If I pot a red then black, I'm 80 cents richer.
That's one type of money game. Another type is how much per frame (1 game is called 1 frame), like maybe 50 or 100 dollars a frame. I know people who plays one point 3 dollars. Imagine one night you can average 10 games (or frames), and let's say you lose average of 20 points per frame. So in just one night, you can lose 200 points, or 600 bucks! That's a lot of money. Plus the table punch that's around 12 bucks per hour, it will kill you. OK I may exaggerate a little, it won't kill, but it really is a lot of money.
I started off with a friend in the army. He was in the same camp as me. We played one point 10 cents, so at the most if I lose 100 points I pay him 10 bucks which is still affordable. After our camp duties in Bukit Merah, we travelled to Clementi to have our game. The billiard saloon served food and drinks, and we'll have our games and have dinner together at the same time. At first I kept losing to him when trying to pick up the game. Then I got better and better. Soon I would be on par with him, sometimes him winning and other times me.
My role model was Stephen Hendry. A lot of people, including me, tried to emulate him. His technic, his robotic feathers (the pre-shot waggles of the cue aiming at the cue ball, his ruthlessness on the table; him being so good that he won so many titles. I still remembered that I overhauled my technique based on a book he wrote, all by myself during my days staying in Hall 8 of NTU (Nanyang Technological University). That was when I got more serious about the game of snooker. I chose to take snooker as a competitive game as firstly I wanted to use my energy from playing basketball and use it somewhere else. Secondly I wanted it to be non-contact due to my injury; I tore my right knee ligament when playing basketball in JC. Lastly, it should preferably be an aiming sport. Snooker fitted all the various criteria.
I bought my first personal cue from a shop in Serangoon Shopping Centre. It was a half piece cue, i.e. the cue was in 2 pieces and you joined the 2 pieces together by screwing them up together. You get a cue jointed in the middle, hence the name; a half piece cue. It was the exact same cue that Kevin, the hall president then, had. I had tried out his cue and found it suited me, so I bought the same one. As expected, the new cue felt a little different (every piece of timber is different), but it felt good overall. I also got a soft padded sling case with the purchase, which suited me well as I rode a motorcycle and could bring the cue along with me, anywhere I go. The damage was 150 bucks.
I played 4-ball during my time at Hall 8, and it helped to hone my skills in snooker, especially safety shots, as I got familiar with the angles the cue ball took after contacting the object ball. What is a safety shot? It is when you decide not to pot or there is no pot on when it's your turn, and you attempt a shot so your opponent can only capitalise the least, either a good snooker, or leaving your opponent with no pot on or a very difficult pot, you would have done a good safety shot. It's a shot that keeps you safe, so to speak.
How's 4-ball played? You have 2 cue balls on the table (one white and the other, yellow), and 2 object balls (a red and a blue ball). You use a cue ball from start to finish, while your opponent uses the other (if you are white, you will use the white and your opponent the yellow, throughout the game). You score either by potting a ball, or making a 'connection', where your cue ball touches one ball and touch another ball after contacting the first ball. If you score, you continue your turn for the next shot, but if you do not score or foul, then the next shot will be your opponent's. You commit a foul when either you fail to hit a ball with your cue ball, or go in-off, which means you pot your own cue ball or your cue ball goes into a pocket. Your opponent after your foul can have a choice; either to continue playing where the balls have rested, or do a 'reset', which means the game starts off back at the starting position, only the points stay. The game starts with the red ball on the black spot, the blue ball on the brown spot and your cue ball on the blue spot. Your opponent will start by placing his or her cue ball anywhere on or behind the baulk line. If a cue ball is potted it stays in the pocket until the owner's turn, where he or she can place the cue ball anywhere on or behind the baulk line, and can only hit balls after the baulk line. In the case where all the balls are on or behind the baulk line, the one's turn will need to hit a cushion first, rebound and try to contact a ball. If the red or blue ball is potted it is respotted, the potted ball goes onto the black or the brown spot, in the half of the table without an object ball. You may then think, "I can just keep potting the same ball to score and win." Nope, there's a rule that prevents that. You can only pot the same ball consecutively for 5 times. There you go; the basic rules of 4-ball.
